Notes from the Evil Empire

I asked a friend who is a lifelong Yankee fan for his take on the Series going into game 3. Here it is:

A-Roid and CC seem to have reverted to their past postseason selves. Strangely, NY is an 8-5 favorite to win it all, even with 3 of the remaining games in Philadelphia. Yanks are a slight favorite tonight, which I assume is based on Hamels' lackluster record in 2009. Still, I think he will be tough tonight, especially on the lefties like Damon, Matsui and Cano. The pitchers get to bat tonight, which could be in Philly's favor.

Even though the Game 3 winner of a 1-1 series goes on to win the title most of the time, that may not be the case in 2009. This has the makings of a long series, which we have not seen since 2002 (7 games) and 2003 (6).

I don't agree with those who think Pedro Martinez should have been yanked after six innings, even though he had made a lot of pitches. They removed him in the earlier series after he pitched a two-hit masterpiece, and ended up losing the game. I'm an old-school guy who thinks starters should go as long as possible, even a full nine innings, especially when the DH is in play.

Evidently, Sabathia has demanded to pitch Game 4, which he might get to do if NY loses Saturday. Be careful what you ask for; you just might get it! I suppose he's a better alternative than anyone else. If it goes the distance, we should see CC vs Hamels in Game 7 on Thursday, unless of course it's snowed out or pre-empted by an American Idol reunion show!

The Series Moves to Philly

Can you believe it’s four weeks since the regular season ended and we’re still playing baseball? I think pitchers and catchers report next week. If it goes much longer, Santa Claus will be out and the Philly fans can boo him again.

The amazing thing about the first two World Series games is the starting pitching on both sides, which has been pretty much lights out except for giving up home runs, and not too many of those. Pedro got the loss in game two because his bullpen failed him, and he was also left in too long. Should have come out after six. Charlie Manuel, meet Grady Little.

At this point I think New York has the advantage, even with the next three games in Philadelphia, because of their pitching. I give Pettite the advantage tonight with his experience and Hamels having a so-so season, going 10-11 for a team that won 93 games. And then in game four, the Phillies go to their number four starter, Joe Blanton, against Sabathia on short rest. Remember that CC went on threedays’ rest for the entire second half of 2008 at Milwaukee, as the Brewers were intent on running him into the ground, knowing that he would be gone to the Yankees after the season. Then he reached the playoffs and didn’t make it out of the fourth inning against this Phillies team. And although he pitched well in game one, he did look tired once the middle innings rolled around. All of which is to say that it’s not a lock for New York with that pitching matchup, but for all their money, the Yankees do not have a fourth starter.

For years, bad teams in all sports have tried to turn themselves around by hiring successful assistants from winning teams who will, no doubt, replicate the success of the boss. More often than not, it doesn’t work. The Patriots did it several times in the 1960s and 1970s resulting in such disasters as Clive Rush, who was a Tom Landry assistant at Dallas. The Bruins tried it a couple of years ago, with disastrous results, bringing in Dave Lewis, a former Scotty Bowman assistant at Detroit. Several Bill Belichick (a Bill Parcells protégé) assistants have gone elsewhere with mixed results. Charlie Weis seems to have found his footing after several so-so years at Notre Dame and Josh McDaniels is certainly an early success at Denver. On the other hand, going to Cleveland is the kiss of death. Romeo Crennel was so successful there that he’s now a pitchman for beer, and Eric Mangini, fired at the J-E-T-S, is now struggling with the Browns.

Well, the assistant-plucking has hit the Red Sox hard this off-season. Theo’s top assistant, Jed Hoyer, is now the GM at San Diego. Let’s see how he does with the second-lowest payroll in baseball.

In Houston, where the ballpark has a locomotive in it, the train wreck that is the Astros hired Brad Mills, Tito’s bench coach, to be the new manager, replacing former Sox first baseman Cecil Cooper. The Astros were in the World Series only four years ago, but that team is history, its best players gone to retirement and the Dodgers. It could be a long, slow climb for Mills.

Speaking of the Dodgers and train wrecks, when the Sox were for sale, how many of us were hoping that Frank McCourt would buy the team and build a new ballpark on one of his parking lots in Southie? Well, let’s be glad he didn’t. With his marriage breaking up very publicly and very badly, the Dodgers are going to suffer and may end up being sold. The reason the Padres hit the skids was the owner’s divorce. One of baseball’s crown-jewel franchises in Los Angeles deserves better than that.

The Series Finally Arrives

Does this season seem a lot longer than other seasons? Well, consider that the 2004 World Series ended on October 27. The 2009 World Series starts on October 28.

Yes, five years ago today, under a red moon, the Red Sox reversed the curse.

It also seems longer because we have to keep talking about the Yankees and their quest for….what number was it? I forget. Oh yeah, 27.

So, let us be brief when talking about the 2009 Yankees. There is enough written about them anyway, and just imagine how many books will be out this winter. (Born to Sit on the Bench, the Brett Gardner Story) First of all, isn’t it amazing that so many of the 30+-year-olds on the Yankees basically had career years while so many of the Red Sox 30+-year-olds crashed and burned in 2009. Must be the water in New York. Or maybe it’s something IN the water. Human Gro…..nah, couldn’t be. No true Yankee would take performance-enhancing drugs, would they?

The Yankees were second in the American League in team batting, first in home runs, RBIs, hits and runs scored. Sort of cleaned up there. Pitching-wise they were third in team ERA. When you spend half-a-billion dollars to buy players you should expect numbers like that.

The Phillies are making their second consecutive trip to the Series this year, so they bring experience to the table. Confronted with pitching problems, they went out and got Cliff Lee and Pedro Martinez, who combined to go 12-5 down the stretch. By the end of the year their team ERA was 4.16, which was 6^th in the National League. They may start Lee and Martinez in games one and two, both former American Leaguers (and Cy Young winners) who are familiar with pitching to the deeper American League lineups. Then it’s on to Joe Blanton (12-8) and Cole Hamels, who inexplicably only won ten games this season.

Playing in a very small ballpark their home run numbers are high, but Yankee Stadium leads the majors in home runs (when you spend one-and-a-half billion dollars of the taxpayer’s money to build it, your ballpark should lead the majors in home runs), so the ballpark should not be a factor. The Phils hit 224 home runs, (20 fewer than the Yankees), scored 820 runs (95 fewer than the Yankees), had 1439 hits (165 fewer than the Yankees) and had a .258 team batting average (15 percentage points less than the Yankees).

This one looks like a no-brainer.

The Yankees hit a lot more home runs, scored a lot more runs, had a lot more hits and a much higher batting average. Hitting advantage: Yankees.

The Yankees team ERA was higher, but American League ERAs are always higher. Yankee pitchers gave up 93 fewer hits and struck out 107 more against stronger lineups. Plus, the Phillies closer, Brad Lidge, failed miserably in 2009, going 0-8 with a 7.21 ERA (and we thought Papelbon had a bad year), while Mariano Rivera was Mariano Rivera. Pitching advantage: Yankees.

I hate to say it, but Yankees in five games. I hope I’m wrong.

A Look Back

Well, we’ve had a few days to reflect on the 2009 season, and it’s time to give out the grades. As we did at midseason, everybody is graded as either exceeding, meeting, or coming in below expectations.

STARTING PITCHING

Josh Beckett: Started weak, had a strong mid-season and ended weak. You look up and he’s 17-6, 3.86 and you ask how he did that. At the beginning of the year we were asking which Josh Beckett we would get, 2008 or 2007. It turned out we got both. Meets expectations.

Jon Lester: Almost an identical year to Beckett in terms of weak/strong/weak to end up 15-8, 3.41 with 225 strikeouts in 203 innings. We expected a lot, he delivered a lot. Meets expectations.

Tim Wakefield: An all-star first half in which he led the league with 11 wins, but the usual injuries cost him the second half of the season, which is a shame. When healthy, he gave the Sox exactly what they needed: A guy that could go out there and keep them in the game. Meets expectations.

Clay Buchholz: Finally got his chance after Penny and Smoltz both washed out, and in half a season he produced 7 wins. Seems to be finally living up to the potential and is already penciled in as the #3 starter in 2010. Exceeds expectations.

Daisuke Matsuzaka: It was more important to him to look good for the WBC than for the team that is paying him $10 mil a year, and that’s inexcusable. Blew out his arm training for a meaningless exhibition series and was basically useless. Below expectations.

John Smoltz: Was expected to be the John Smoltz of old. Instead was the John Wasdin of old. Below expectations.

Brad Penny: Got off to a good start, sort of, but with 160 hits in 130 innings, he could never get out of the fifth inning. Below expectations.

RELIEF PITCHING

Hideki Okajima: All in all, another quality year from the quiet lefthander, with six wins and 53 strikeouts in 61 innings. Meets expectations.

Takashi Saito: Coming off an arm injury at age 39, Saito had an ERA of 2.43 and 52 strikeouts in 50 innings. Meets my expectations, but not Theo’s, who has released him in hopes of getting Saito back at a cheaper price.

Manny Delcarmen: Since Delcarmen is the only native Bostonian on the team, we all want him to succeed. He just still can’t seem to pitch in clutch situations or with men on base which is, after all, the main job of a reliever. Maybe he needs to get away from home. Below expectations.

Ramon Ramirez: Led the team with 70 relief appearances. Not a strikeout pitcher, walks a lot of #8 and #9 types of hitters, and doesn’t inspire confidence. But the numbers were decent, 7-4 2.84 so I guess he meets expectations.

Daniel Bard: I saw him strike out the side on nine pitches at Pawtucket, so expectations were high. I’d say 41 hits in 49 innings and an eye-popping 11.5 strikeouts per nine innings pitched exceeds expectations for any rookie thrown into a pennant race.

Jonathan Papelbon: It seemed like every game he pitched was a disaster waiting to happen. And in Game Three the disaster finally happened. Bad timing. He did have 38 saves, which is what he is supposed to do. But did every save have to be a roller coaster ride? Meets expectations

All the others: With a bunch of ERAs around 8 or 9, they can pretty much go back to Pawtucket or wherever they came from. Incomplete.

CATCHING

Jason Varitek: Not much was expected. He hit .220 last year and went down closer to the Mendoza Line this year. Sad to say, the Captain has had it. Let’s just hope he has the good sense to retire and go out with some class instead of embarrassing himself by squeezing one more $3 million out of the game. He’ll make a great coach or manager. Even hitting just .209 he comes in below expectations.

Victor Martinez: Is known for his hitting and did not disappoint, hitting .336 with 41 RBIs for Boston (.303 with 108 RBIs overall) and providing some stability in the #3 slot. Can’t seem to throw anybody out (only 11%), and that is a concern, but overall a good addition. Meets expectations.

George Kottaras: Did a good job catching Tim Wakefield before taking one for the team with a phantom injury to allow Victor Martinez on the roster. Not much of a hitter, but .237 should be good enough to be a backup somewhere if not here. Meets expectations.

INFIELDERS

Kevin Youkilis: Consistent April to October at the plate and on the field even as moved from first to third and back again every day. Numbers were down a bit all around, but not significantly, given that the moves across the diamond had to be distracting. Meets expectations.

Dustin Pedroia: The 2008 MVP year was probably his career year, so this year’s numbers weren’t as good. But nobody plays the game harder, nobody dives after more ground balls, nobody sparks this team like Pedey. Exceeds expectations.

Mike Lowell: The hip was an issue, he would lose a footrace to any of the Molinas, but he still plays the game with determination. Even with the injury, he still hit .290 and is the epitome of class. Exceeds expectations.

Alex Gonzalez: After he arrived the Sox went from 8^th in team defense to 6^th. That’s why he was brought aboard. Meets expectations.

Nick Green: As the only healthy shortstop in April, he became the starter and produced an excellent first half of the season. He was wearing out by the time Gonzo got here, and cost the team a couple of games with wild throws, but when you expect nothing and get something, that’s the definition of exceeds expectations.

Julio Lugo: Say it with me now…below expectations.

Jed Lowrie: Spent more time on the DL than on the active roster. A lost year for Lowrie and now, for the third year in a row, he’ll have to prove himself again. Incomplete.

OUTFIELDERS

Jason Bay: Struck out a lot, which lowered his batting average, but posted power and RBI numbers very similar to Mark Texeira and way above his lifetime averages. Good luck in NY or SF. Exceeds expectations.

Jacoby Ellsbury: After being dropped to the #7 slot in the order midseason, rebounded to become the leadoff hitter that everybody thought he was going to be. One of only three regulars with a .300+ batting average, and don’t forget the 70 stolen bases. Exceeds expectations.

JD Drew: Remember that despite the superstar salary, what we expect from JD is “average.” We got more than that with a .279 season and 24 home runs. Also overlooked is his ability to run down balls headed toward Pesky’s Pole. Usually is below expectations, so this year raised his game to meets expectations, based on more or less earning his salary

RESERVES

Rocco Baldelli: Nobody knew, really, what to expect from Baldelli this year, but he proved to be the only reclamation job that worked out as a pinch hitter or a spot start in the outfield. Meets expectations.

Casey Kotchman: Proved to be a warm body and not much more, hitting just .218 in Boston. Below expectations.

Josh Reddick: Overmatched and underwhelming. Played like a guy up from Double-A. Oh yeah, that’s what he was,so I guess he meets expectations.

Mark Kotsay: Tell me again, why was he traded? The Sox lost a lot of flexibility and could have used him more than Kotchman, Reddick or the six games we got out of Adam LaRoche (tell me again, why was he ever here?). Meets expectations.

DESIGNATED HITTER

David Ortiz: The two-month long slump doomed Big Papi to a sub-par year. Even though he ended up with 28 home runs and 99 RBIs, which project out to a decent year, when you’re Big Papi, more is expected. Below expectations.

MANAGEMENT

Terry Francona: Took a flawed team with pitching that went from “too much” to “not enough” almost overnight and not enough power and still made the playoffs with 95 wins. Meets expectations.

Theo Epstein: While the Yankees spent the money to get the Mercedes free agents, the Sox didn’t, and got the Yugo free agents (or maybe I should say Lugo free agents), breaking down almost immediately. This team didn’t have enough to compete for the division let alone the World Series. Below expectations.

The final totals:

7 exceeds expectations (20%)
16 meets expectations (46%)
10 below expectations(28%)
2 incomplete (6%)

In order to win a championship, a team needs a lot of players to have, if not career years, better than average years. In the end, too many players had average or below average seasons.

You can argue that this team won 95 games, but expectations are higher than they are in, say, Toronto or even Detroit. A player that meets expectations here would exceed everybody’s wildest expectations in Pittsburgh and probably would be traded out of town for a couple of second-rate prospects.

The Season Ends

It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.
- A. Bartlett Giamatti, Commissioner of Baseball 1988-89

Not a Good Start

I woke up this morning thinking that it was Saturday but not being too sure. It’s that playoff zombie feeling from too many late-night games. But it doesn’t look like I’ll have this feeling much longer because it doesn’t look like the Red Sox will last much longer this year.

While the Yankees are staging ninth-inning comebacks and walk-off wins, the Sox are just trying to stay in the game, and not doing a very good job of that. A .131 batting average and two runs scored is not a recipe for playoff success.

This is a recap of the 2009 regular season condensed into two games. Boston hitters would feast on the bottom-dwelling teams and go south against good teams. Get swept by the Yankees? No problem, the Royals or Orioles are coming to town. The inability of this team to hit against the better teams was masked by its prowess against teams with losing records.

Now, in the playoffs, there are no weak teams. You can’t fatten up your average against the Indians. They’re playing golf right now and this isn’t better.

Meanwhile, the Angels just go on playing their brand of baseball, which puts pressure on a team no matter who it is. Hit and run, first to third, walk then steal second, two-out triples. The Angels have done it all. They may be geographically challenged about where they play, but they don’t have a problem with how they play.

They remind me of the 1970s and early 1980s small-ball teams that wore powder-blue uniforms and played on artificial turf in big, donut-shaped stadiums. Yup, the 1982 Cardinals of Ozzie Smith, Lonnie Smith, Willie McGee and Tommy Herr. Couldn’t hit home runs, but had five players with 19 or more steals, 87 total sacrifice hits, and were experts at bouncing the ball off that hard field for singles, doubles and triples. The team batting average was just .264, but they made every one of those hits count. When that team played the Dodgers, I’ll bet 23-year-old Mike Scioscia was watching and taking notes.

But, back to the Red Sox, who had eight strikeouts but only seven base runners last night. They’ve been in this situation before, of course. Remember Kevin Millar’s rant on the night of game four against the Yankees about how we have Schilling pitching tonight, then Pedro tomorrow and then game seven and anything can happen? Well, this year we have Buchholz then Matsuzaka and then game five and anything can happen. Not quite the same, is it?

The Divisional Series

As always, the Yankees have all the advantages going into the playoffs. As always, the question is can they take advantage. While the New Yorkers have been resting and getting their pitching lined up, the Twins have been playing meaningful games and using up their pitching staff. So, after playing a four and a half hour game, using eight pitchers and flying all night to New York, Minnesota has to send Brian Duensing to the mound against probable Cy Young winner C.C. Sabathia. Heard of Duensing? Probably not. He started the season in Rochester and tonight will make his 10th major league start.

The difference in payroll between the two teams? $150 million dollars. That means the difference between what each team spends on players is greater than the total payroll of 26 MLB teams.

The Twins are one of the teams that I really admire. They can’t afford to keep the players they have, like Johann Santana and Torii Hunter, but their player development machine keeps churning out replacements. Mauer, Morneau, Kubel, Cuddyer, Span, Liriano, Baker. They’ve won five AL Central titles in the last eight years. And, this year, with former MVP Justin Morneau down with an injury, players like Jason Kubel have stepped up big time while the team gets stretch-run acquisitions Carl Pavano and Orlando Cabrera, who always seems to end up on a division winner.

But, in the end, big money beats big hearts. Yanks sweep on their way to the championship. When you spend half a billion dollars in the off-season it should buy you a winner.

And, or course, the schedule favors the Yankee fans. While their games start at 6:07 (not 6:05 or 6:10, but 6:07), us Sox fans have to wait until almost bedtime for our games to start.

Meanwhile, on the other coast, it’s the Sox and Anaheim Angels Not of Los Angeles. Pitching is pretty even. On the surface the Sox seem to have better relievers, but the imploding Sox bullpen over the last two months inspires anything but confidence. Both teams can hit. The deal-maker/deal-breaker in this series is that the Angels run every chance they get and the Red Sox can’t stop any team or any player from running.

Much has been made about the way Boston has handled the Angels in the postseason going back to 1986 (maybe Dave Henderson should throw out a first pitch). But that is basically a statistical anomaly, and statistical anomalies usually even themselves out. Sorry to say, but looking at this objectively, Angels 3-2 in this one.
In the National League, I hope the Phillies get to the World Series just because I’d rather see Pedro in there than Manny or John Smoltz or Jason Giambi.

A Series of Things

No team wins all of its games. In fact, teams almost never win two-thirds of their games. So, given the expectation that you will lose some games, a good indicator of how you do in a season is how many series you win or lose. This year the Red Sox had 18 series wins, 10 losses and 2 splits before the All-Star break. The Yankees were 18-10-2 in the same period, which explains how the teams stayed close for the first half of the season. After the break, though, the Sox went 12-9-2, while the Yankees were 17-5-1, pulling eight games ahead in the AL East.

There will be no more Wedgies in Cleveland as manager Eric Wedge was fired effective at the end of the season. The Indians blow out all their good players every few years and get prospects to start rebuilding all over again. They did it in the late ’90s with the Lofton/Manny/Thome/Vizquel/Travis Fryman/Bartolo Colon teams, getting players like Travis Hafner and Grady Sizemore in return. This year, the Indians started the season with players like Mark De Rosa (now with the Cardinals), Victor Martinez (now with the Sox), Ben Francisco and Cliff Lee (gone to Philly), Ryan Garko (Giants) and Rafael Betencourt (Rockies). Now, it’s back to the youth movement with Matt LaPorta from Milwaukee last year, Andy Marte, Lou Marson over from the Phillies, Michael Brantley and Luis Vanbuena. It’s pretty tough to have to rebuild all the time, and the manager often takes the blame.

Meanwhile, in Toronto, General Manager J.P. Ricciardi was tossed after eight years. Being from Worcester, Ricciardi was interviewed a lot in the local media and always seemed to say the same thing, “We don’t have the money to compete with the Red Sox and the Yankees.” And he was right. The Jays could put together enough talented players to be competitive, but were never able to go after the big free agents. They always could get the Lyle Overbays and B.J. Ryans of the baseball world, but were never able to bring in a game-changing player. He did sign A.J. Burnett and Frank Thomas, but Burnett was inconsistent for his first two seasons and Thomas was a bust. The club developed some excellent players in Adam Lind and Aaron Hill, but there weren’t enough good players around them. Ricky Romero, Brett Cecil and David Purcey are all developing into good starters, but it will be the next GM who will reap the benefits. Then there were the injuries to Jesse Litsch, Shawn Marcum and Dustin McGowan, who were all hurt this year. Now it’s up to the new GM to sort out the pieces but, in the end, it all comes down to payroll, and unless the Jays can find lightning in a bottle for a couple of years like the Rays did last year, this same story will be written again a couple of seasons from now. Another example of how baseball needs a salary cap.

John Smoltz has come down to earth in St. Louis, where he is 0-3 with three no-decisions in his last six starts. Brad Penny, on the other hand, is 4-1 with the Giants and pitched a six-hit shutout in his last start. But the best former Sox pitcher out there right now is Pedro Martinez, who is 5-1, 3.63 ERA in nine starts for the Phillies.

Whether the Sox begin the postseason on Wednesday or Thursday, get ready for some 10:00 starts.

What If...

One of my most memorable “Saturday Night Live” sketches was called “What If.” It was one of the pseudo-PBS shows in which Dan Aykroyd hosted a bunch of pseudo-pseudo-intellectuals debating topics like “What if Superman grew up in Germany, instead of America?" or “What if Eleanor Roosevelt could fly?”

Well, twice last week the Red Sox played “What If.” First, the question was “What if we used only Pawsox pitchers in a real Major League game?” Then there was “What if we used only Pawsox position players in a real Major League game?” Either way, it didn’t work out.

The pitchers’ game was necessitated by Josh Beckett’s back problems. He was scratched at the last minute and the emergency starter was Michael Bowden (4-6, 3.13 for Pawtucket). He gave up seven runs in three innings. Then came Hunter Jones (4-3, 4.25 for Pawtucket). He was followed by Dustin Richardson (2-2, 2.55 for Portland and Pawtucket), who was summoned to Boston from his home in Kansas to fill a roster spot. Manny Delcarmen, who has been pitching like a minor leaguer lately, finished the game off. Final score: Toronto 11, Boston 5 in a rain-shortened seven innings.

Two days later, with the Sox having clinched the Wild Card, it was Futures at Fenway time again. Tim Wakefield was totally ineffective as the starter, but the other nine guys in the lineup were even more ineffective as hitters, with Joey Gathright (.325 at Pawtucket), Josh Reddick (.127 in 18 games), Goerge Kottaras (.294 in 10 games), Brian Anderson (.228), Jed Lowrie (.176) and Chris Woodward (.129) combining to go 2-for-17 (Gathright had two singles). Where was Iggy Suarez when we needed him?

Well, those two games proved one thing: These guys are not ready for prime time.

In good news, Jon Lester showed that he’s OK, pitching a very Lester-like game in his final start of the regular season, giving up two hits and striking out seven. That’s one playoff question answered. We’ll have another answer tonight as Dice-K gets another start. He still makes me nervous. His first game back, he pitched like a different guy, challenging hitters and throwing strikes. Last time out, he was back to being “The Nibbler.” Against the Anaheim Angels, every nibble gives the Angels a greater chance to create mayhem on the basepaths.

Most teams have some sort of Fan Appreciation event at the end of the season. They give away good stuff to their loyal fans, things like game-worn shirts, bobbleheads and stuff like that. This year, the Sox are having their own Fan Appreciation events and, according to the official release, “ARAMARK vendors will also be providing lucky fans, selected randomly throughout the ballpark, with complimentary peanuts and Cracker Jacks during the 7th inning stretch of each game.” Your support is worth peanuts to us.